Customer Research and Segmentation - Making Content to Match Customer Behaviour - Teacher: Kris Granger

So you ask someone, do you want a silver computer or a black computer? They might think to themselves, how do I want to represent myself? And maybe black is more trendy, so I'm going to say black. But then, when you put a silver computer and a black computer in front of them, to choose between one, they may go with the silver one. On Tuesday! But then on Friday, they might go with the black one. And that, that's just consumer behavior, which is why testing is so important as well. 

This is Chris Grage. Lecturer, trainer and digital marketing manager at Volvo Group Sweden. Chris has trained thousands of people to think like a marketer and today on Useful Content we'll be talking about customer research. and segmentation,

making content to match customer behavior. We'll talk about why speaking to your customers is very important. 

For everything from speaking to people who come to your parlor, to calling up truck drivers in, in the North of Sweden. It's, it's the same thing. Let's speak to our customers to get insights. 

What are the best ways to speak to them and why it's important to have an objective beforehand. 

So as we design our interviews, Our questionnaire or a focus group, or as we decide which of those tactics is best for us, we really have to start with what our objectives, what are we really trying to achieve? 

Why customer insights should always come before tactics. 

Don't jump straight into the tactics. You know, we love creative aspect of marketing.

We love to talk about the billboards and the let's advertise on Facebook and X and, and, and Instagram and those types of things. But it's really about the customer.

And in the end we'll talk a bit about branding and he shares something with me that I never knew before. What is a family ice cream hero? 

I had the opportunity to really think about what motivates people to buy ice cream. One, one of the, the personas that I played with in my mind was the family ice cream hero. The person who 

Let's make useful content. 

Hello and welcome to the useful content podcast. I am Juma Bannister, your host and your useful content teacher. And today we have a brand new teacher.

In the useful content classroom, Kris Granger, I, Kris,

Hi, Juma. It's a pleasure to be here, man.

it's great to have you on. I've been following you for a few years now. I particularly remember you being on, um, this virtual conference. Was it, did you mark, I think it was, or crossing the digital divide and you taught a class there and I was in the audience and I was like, Oh, Kris. It's really, really great stuff, man.

Uh, so I know you from there and I know you from about, uh, no, uh, you're here on the show, which is very great. So could you tell people, introduce yourself, tell the people who you are and how you help your clients and your students. With the useful content that you make

I, I, um, I've been in this digital marketing and content strategy game for quite a long time. I've designed and delivered a number of executive education programs at Lockjack for, um, Digital marketing strategy. I've also been working with Ned Coe for about five years. Um, so I've, I've taught classes, um, with hundreds of entrepreneurs in Trinidad and Tobago. Um, I've worked with the OECS teaching entrepreneurs around the Caribbean. Um, and, and I've been doing that back and forth between Trinidad and Sweden. Um, and here in Sweden, I've worked on Um, a number of global, um, Volvo Group brands, including Volvo Construction Equipment, Volvo Trucks, Volvo Penta, Volvo Buses, um, Volvo Group. And I've worked as well with the European Union, um, to deliver quite a lot of digital marketing strategy. Courses in different parts of Europe. Um, for a long time, my mantra has been push the Caribbean forward. And I felt as though, um, teaching and consulting in digital marketing strategy was how I would do that. Um, so that that's pretty much my introduction and, and, um, what I've been up to.

great. And I, and I know you are almost like a brand ambassador for Volvo, because I saw that you were here recently and you saw a Volvo truck on the road. And you were like saying, Oh, here's a Volvo truck. Uh, so you, you are very much not just an employee of Volvo, but you are also somebody who believes in the brand.

How do you find balance in between like representing your company and teaching and everything else that you do?

Um, it's funny. I, I also, I forgot to mention that I also teach at the university of Gothenburg. And I remember when I. I told, I told them at Volvo that I needed to spend some of my work day at the university. Um, they, they were fine with it as long as I wore a Volvo t shirt. Uh, and, and that I, that's kind of a bit of my personality.

It's a marketer's personality. You know, I spent a lot of years working, doing marketing for Carib. And so that's the beer that I drink. Um, and I did, uh, I spent a lot of time doing marketing for Domino's pizza. That's the pizza I eat. And as a marketer, that's really, that's, that's how you live. You believe in the brands that you work for because you're part of it.

It's like the Ikea effect. You, you build it. And so it's yours. And so you're part of it. And that's how I am with Volvo. I mean, I truly, I'm really happy to be part of, of the Volvo group. I really, really believe in what Volvo believes. Then. You know, as a Caribbean nation, Trinidad and Tobago is particularly susceptible to the impact of climate change. And so what Volvo believes in its climate, um, climate mitigation strategies and how we're working on building climate neutral products and that sort of thing, that Really has a significant impact on us as a people. It, it, it resonates well with my mantra of pushing the Caribbean forward as well. So I, I actually believe that.

And when I see a Volvo truck or a Renault truck, which is owned by Volvo group or, um, a Volvo bus, there is a genuine sense of pride. So it's in fact, I would not be able to work with a company that I don't share a value system with. And so it,

it, it feels natural and it feels easy for me to just embody and just be myself authentically at all points in time when it comes to, to different brands that I work with.

That's good. That's good. And I think that that's becoming more and more of a thing for people who work with brands and even for companies that are being built. And so like for business owners who may be listening to this podcast, would you say that the things that they should do for their own marketing should be in alignment with their values at all time?

Yeah. Let me give an example. I don't, I wouldn't want to spend too much time pandering to Volvo, but when we're thinking about. sustainability strategies for any organization. You, you can't just say to yourself, well, we as a company, we practice sustainability. You have to think about the entire value chain of the industry and how all of the practices of every supplier, in that industry impact the climate. And that's really how you calculate your, your, um, I guess your, your carbon neutrality or your carbon footprint from your entire value chain in the same way. Um, when we think about who we are as a brand and what we, what our value system is and what we represent, you want to work with suppliers who are Who believe what you believe you want to, you want to attract customers who believe what you believe.

So as an entrepreneur, it's so important. It's so crucial for you to understand and be super close to your value system so that the suppliers, the customers, the employees, the people that you work with along the entire value chain, share what you believe so that you can have a, a truly, a truly authentic relationship all the way.

And you're not. Closing your eyes to different things along the line.

Yeah. Yeah. That's good stuff. That's good stuff. And I think the more people build businesses authentically. The more likely the business is to do, do what they wanted to do to have the outcomes that they desire. And so that's, that's very, very important. So, so today we, we are going to jump into some of some advice and some Particular topics that would help small business owners.

And we're going to focus on some specific points about how a business owners can do better with their digital marketing. Uh, and so I want to know. From your perspective going into this year, maybe into the near future, what are some of the most important things in your mind that business owners should be looking at when it comes to their content marketing?

And when it comes to their digital strategies?

this Year the digital marketing landscape changed exponentially. There was such a huge. Impact when artificial intelligence or generative AI, um, sort of became democratized with, with, with the, the involvement of charging GPT and all of this host of, of, um, software tools that have become available to make content, uh, more rapid and, and, and to, to make data analysis so much more accessible. Um, and so when I think about. The trends, the things that are super important for us to focus on at the very top of my mind is how generative A. I. Is impacting your ability to create content, um, and to understand data. Of course, um, you know, when we spoke earlier, we talked about other super important core things for organizations to understand because again, consumers have become so much more sensitive to, um, I guess, better marketing, you know, what, what impacts consumers expectations are other brands, the way Spotify's algorithm gives you music that you like, the way Netflix is able to, to recommend things that, that. That you, that, that you like particularly the way Amazon is able to stalk you and, and give you things that you, you really like all of these things have really impacted the way customers expect brands to behave, whether they're big brands or small brands, um, customer expectations have changed.

And so our ability to, to, to be close to the customer, and we spoke about this under the umbrella of segmentation, our ability to be close to the customer and be intimate with the customer to understand. What their, um, what their expectations are in a given industry or for a given product type. That's something that's super, super important as well. And I would also say we, we didn't really touch on this too much, but data, not just data from the way customers behave, not just your own website data or social media data, but Juma, you posted something about TikTok saying this morning or yesterday, this morning, I saw it, um, saying that. 800, 000 Trinidadians can be reached on TikTok. Why am I still having arguments with people saying that they're not, that they can't reach their organ, their, their, their, um, consumers on, on TikTok. So we have to be aware of the secondary data sources that are available and really be able to make decisions about our customers that. that are informed, that really help make a strong impact.

So let's read the, the, um, the reports that, that, that are published freely, that Hootsuite report. I don't know if it's still Hootsuite that does it, but it was Hootsuite that did it before. Um, but I think it changed over maybe Meltwater.

Yeah, I think it is. Yeah.

Yeah, those reports that are published. Um, we want to be able to read them and know what's going on in our space. So it's just, I think the overall or the underlying point I'll make about it is that we, when we're dealing with marketing, whether we identify as a marketer, or we're identifying as an entrepreneur who has to do marketing as part of their job. part of their job, we have to recognize that it's an ever changing landscape.

So we have to submit to the fact that we have to be nerdy a little bit about it. We have to read. We, it's, it's not just creative. Um, a lot of feedback I give students now, I was reading some reflective essays, Yesterday is don't jump straight into the tactics. You know, we love marketing, creative aspect of marketing.

We love to talk about the billboards and the let's advertise on Facebook and X and, and, and Instagram and those types of things. But it's really about the customer. Um, at the end of the day, that, that always comes back down. So that hopefully serves as a sort of introductory spiel. It's about the customer's expectation. That has evolved because of AI, because of recommendation algorithms, because of, of, of new platforms and that sort of thing.

Yeah, that's good. And I think what the point that you made about, cause we're going to talk about segmentation. We're going to talk about brand building and we're going to touch a bit on AI a little more as we go along. But I think the point about at the center of that is who is the customer. And can you, do you know them very well?

And are you taking the time to get to know them before you start to implement all these tactics? Because as we know in marketing, you can't execute properly without diagnosis. You have to go to the top of the chain and you have to come down. Right? So, so let's, let's jump in a little bit to segmentation, because I know that's something that you teach your students and you do all the time.

And, uh, and I suspect that some of your students, they may be learning the trade and some of them may go into business for themselves. And, uh, what, what are the, is the most important thing when it comes to segmentation? And if you have to teach somebody about segmentation, where do you exactly start?

So, foundationally, I would put segmentation in the context of, uh, uh, something called the STP framework, segmentation, targeting, and positioning. So, The STP framework starts off with breaking your segment down based on psychographics, demographics, geographics, and behavioral, um, expectations or the way your consumer behaves. So, And, and, and that once you, and I'll come back to that, once you break that down from the segmentation part, you then are able to dive into the T, which is targeting, understanding the needs of these different segments, understanding the The pains and the gains and the aspirations of that segment. And then once you die, once you've gotten to that point, you're able to say, okay, well, given those needs are given the needs of that segment.

What then is the, the space that you want to occupy in the minds of these people? If, if someone needs something. that your brand can provide. How is, what is the space in their mind that your brand is going to occupy to facilitate that provision? And that in all is the STP framework. So being able to take your understanding of your, your psychographic, demographic, geographic, and behavioral segments to then take it all the way to how, how am I occupying The mind of the consumer. So I'll, I'll go deeper now into segmentation and talk about psychographic segmentation is what, what is sort of known as interest based segmentation. It's what, what, what is my consumer interested in? So if I'm selling, um, clothing, for example, depending on the side, the style of the clothing or the value system of the organization, um, you want to attract, a customer who might have interests in sustainable fashion, or maybe you want to have attract a customer who's focused on local fashion, or maybe you want to attract a customer who likes Beyonce because your fashion is reminiscent of pop culture. Um, so understanding the, the interest of the organizer, of the, um, the consumer. It's kind of where you, you, you dive into psychographic segmentation. And the more you dig deeply into this, this area is the more intimate, um, Stanford university calls this, um, consumer intimacy. Um, the, we. The more you dive into that, the more intimate, the closer you get, the better of a relationship you can have.

And that sort of interest based segmentation is facilitated really, really well on LinkedIn, for example. So if you're trying to, to, and TikTok does it extremely well as, as you are better than the Facebook platform. So if you want to, to find someone, your customer, is interested in Beyonce, you can actually target people who have demonstrated interest in content related to Beyonce or content related to sustainable fashion or so forth and so on. Um, so that the better you, you understand the customers, the better you're able to use the platform to be able to reach the customer that likes that interest. That's, that's a really, really. smart trick. So it's like doing your, your, your working really well before diving into the platforms. Um,

then of course, Facebook TikTok and LinkedIn are all very good at demographic segmentation. And that is your age, your gender. 

Yeah. So, but then Google, for example, Google platform looks at life stage as well. So that falls into demographic segmentation too. So it could be if you're an expecting family or you're pregnant or you just got married. or you're just about to get married, those types of things. So of course, depending on if you're selling maternity clothes or if you're selling wedding, wedding events or wedding dresses or, or that sort of thing, the demographic segmentation, that life stage really has a lot of value to add in that. Um, I, I did some work with always when I worked with the Lonsdale in Trinidad, um, and that life stage mattered because Um, we would, we were targeting in many cases, or at least a particular campaign we worked on.

It was the Like a Girl campaign. Um, that campaign was targeting young women, um, or young girls or young ladies age 12 to 15. Um, so that it really matters the, the, to get closer to the campaign to be able to dig into the demographic aspect of it. So we spoke about psychographic and demographic and then geographic is location based. Why does that matter? It matters because maybe your distribution channel, for example, your distribution channels are in fact location based. Let's staying on the, the, um, the example of, of clothing. If you are a local fashion designer and you are able, and you're in San Fernando and you're able to distribute through your own delivery system, you have your own delivery system, you're and you could go as far as Chaguanas.

Um, And maybe Moruga. So you're going up, up and down the, the, the geography of Trinidad, up to Chagona, send down to Moruga. You may want to, you may not want to invest in advertising dollars that send that, that are going to Tobago, unless you have a shipment. Place unless your distribution and your, your logistics system and your operations facilitates a, a distribution to Tobago or to Barbados or to Rima or to Port of Spain, if you know that you could only, um, satisfy the needs of customers in a particular geographic region, then you don't want to invest in advertising dollars beyond that region.

And again, those platforms facilitate the radius of geography that you wanna be able to advertise in. So we spoke about psychographic or interest. space, demographic, geographic, and then behavioral segmentation has a lot to do with, um, in now behavioral segmentation in a digital space versus behavioral segmentation in an offline space are not exactly the same. So behavioral segmentation in the offline space might be, I prefer to buy as a customer, I prefer to buy closed. in the store. I want to come into the store, try on the clothes. Whereas in the digital space, the behavioral segmentation might be this customer likes to shop on Instagram or this customer likes to shop on the website or this customer likes to find information on Google.

Before going into Instagram to see if his friends or her friends are following the particular page and then sharing to ask people's opinions. So people's online behavior, what devices they use also is, is a, uh, an aspect of behavioral segmentation, which TikTok as a platform supports that tremendously.

So let's say I'm an iPhone repair specialist. I And I, and I am very good at repairing the brand new iPhone. I don't know where we've reached now, 15 or 16,

It's I think it's 15. It's terrible, terrible for your prayers, by the way, but go ahead.

so I mean, I don't know. I'm not, I'm not an iPhone repair specialist, but let's say I'm, I want to target people who only have iPhones, 12 and 13.

TikTok can facilitate that. I can actually only, only, um, target devices, um, that are, Of a particular age or that sort of thing. So depending on the use, the hardware that we're using and the different channels that we're using, the more, you know, about your customer is the better equipped you are to use those marketing platforms to be able to target them. So that's, that, that's the, probably one of the most core. Activities that we can do as marketing strategists. If we're creating marketing strategies to really maximize the use of these digital platforms. Um, and that, and that, that's the, the, the essence of segmentation. I 

you give me a whole lot to unpack there. Let me see if I could pull out some of these salient points. A whole lot, a whole lot. Um, so I think, I think so many things you were really. Speaking to that will be important for businesses when they think about it. It's like, well, obviously they have to know their customer.

And I really want to ask you, which I'll get to just now is how, how does one go about knowing a customer? That's a question I want to ask, but I'll save that for a bit later. But I think, uh, one of the key things you, you spoke about is not just. Knowing the customer in terms of the demographics, that's important.

And we know you can get that. And then the psychographics and then the behavior, and then you have your geo geographic geographics. But the other thing is that how does, does that data that you have now. Apply to the particular platform that you want to distribute this content. And, um, and you made a very, very good point about only targeting things that matter to you and matter to your business.

So if you know, you can only ship to a particular place is makes no sense advertising outside of that particular place. And that's a very good point. So that's when people, there was a time in, in Facebook ads, when people would just like, say, well, target everywhere. And, um, and we know that that doesn't make sense because people who are in, let's just say Barbados, the senior Trinidadian based.

Company with no shipping. Makes no sense. Doesn't mean to a, you don't need to advertise everywhere. Be very specific. But now people have gotten very good at it. Uh, so, so the question I would, I would ask, come back and ask now, is how does a business owner, somebody who may not have experience in marketing, get this information and this data about their customer so that they can make these important decisions in their marketing?

have a tough response for you know, Juma you have to ask the customer. It's, it's, Super, super funny. It's such a, such a simple response, but I think people are always looking and people ask this question all the time. People are always looking for another answer. Um, so I'll give you a softer answer. We can start with a semi fictitious Um, customer profile, a persona we can, and I say semi fictitious because we get into business because we feel as though we have a sense of the customer. we we have talked to customers, right? We, we may not have done it in a focus group or we've not done questionnaires and that sort of thing. So, we have a sense of it. So, we can start with a semi fictitious one, and we can use something called the Persona Canvas, um, to be able to, and you can, these things are Google able, you can Google Persona Canvas to help you decide what to do.

or to help you design, sorry, um, your, your persona. Um, and once you get started, you sort of, it, you know, you decide it's male or female, um, someone who lives in this area, someone who does that, and, and, and you've built it out. But with that semi fictitious, um, Persona, that could really only get you so far.

So then we have to do other things with that after we have to validate it. We have to test. If we're starting with something semi fictitious, then we, it's, it's not accurate. So we have to be able to, to test. And testing is another one of my favorite words in marketing. You know, just let's, let's, Let's see if it works.

Let's spend a percentage of the budget, um, testing our hypothesis about this persona. And then of course, it really doesn't hurt if you find a few people who meet the description of your persona and interview them, ask them a question

in, in in marketing. And it's really not rocket science, right? In marketing, they give us. Three very basic, um, research tools, ask them a few questions, write a questionnaire and, and ask questions to the people who, who you think are part of your target and validate that. Um, bring them into a room, ask them questions together, let them talk, see how they react to certain things. Bring, that's a focus group.

You don't have to be a super scientist that to get a sense that your semi fictitious persona is accurate or off. Um, and you can, you can have one on one interviews. So I would say. Utilize tools like SurveyMonkey. We want, you know, you, it's not going to hurt you to pay the 1099 or whatever for one month to be able to, to, to ask a hundred people if your, if your assumptions about them are correct. Um, it doesn't have to be a hundred questions. It could be five questions. It could be 10 questions, you know, but it, but we want to be able, the, the key Is that we want to be able to have real, authentic, intimate, genuine, all those words. We want to have those relationships with our customers. So we really have to break past the barrier that, well, I'm not a research company or I can't afford research, or I don't know how to do ask some questions.

It will take you from one point to the next, and it will make the difference.

Yeah. That's a fantastic point. I think don't know, because this is not what you do, that you don't do it because in order for your business to go the way you want it to go, you have to put effort into doing that. And that research part is a big thing that people often just skip over.

they don't want to do it. And I, I, I mean, I have, I, I, I've had the, um, I guess the opportunity and the privilege to, to have consulted with entrepreneurs from corner shop owners to fortune 500 global companies. And it's true for everyone. There is always that question that we're trying to, um, to sort of skirt picking up the phone and having a conversation.

And I mean, Speaking to, for everything from speaking to people who come to your parlor, to calling up truck drivers in, in the North of Sweden. It's, it's the same thing. Let's speak to our customers to get insights.

you know, something. Okay. So I have a couple of questions again. You, you, you opening up more questions for me. Right. So, which is a good thing. So there are two things I'm thinking about. Like, obviously what's the structure of those things? Cause you said, you don't have to ask a hundred questions. You could probably just do something simple with five, right?

Like what's the nature of those questions, but also what we've noticed in doing our own, uh, customer research, um, like what we will interview our clients, clients, essentially to get the, to find out how they serve them. So we get insights into how to create the content. What we've noticed in doing those interviews is that, what we're doing now is we are having them fill out the questionnaire live while they talk to us, because we've noticed what people write and what people say is often different.

And 

that's another difference. True. Go ahead. Yeah.

so, and so I would ask, well, what is the, the, the best way, how do you get the most accurate information from your customers?

So there's this word called triangulate in research. Um, we have to triangulate. We really, and this is not something that you, that's kind of one and done. Um, so you asked firstly about structure and I would say that we have to begin with objectives. So as we design our interviews, our questions Our questionnaire or a focus group, or as we decide which of those tactics is best for us, we really have to start with what our objectives, what are we really trying to achieve?

Are we trying to validate our customer, um, our assumptions about the customer? Are we trying to, Understand where our customers hang out, what social media platforms they use. Are we trying to understand what products they like the most? So I think it's, it's super important to be, to be very clear on what we want to find out. So, um, let's say we, there are three things we want to find out that might very well give you three questions that you need to ask, And you may not need to ask anymore. Maybe in order to find out one of those objectives, you have to ask two questions or three questions. And so if we start with the objectives, then we, we then that takes us to the types of questions we ask. Now you're right. And Steve Jobs said it, customers don't know what they want. They're going to tell you, they're going to tell you what in many cases, and this is just consumer psychology. They're going to tell you in many cases, what they think is the right answer. So you ask someone, do you want a silver computer or a black computer? And they might say, well. They might think to themselves, how do I want to represent myself? And maybe black is more trendy, so I'm going to say black. But then, when you put a silver computer and a black computer in front of them, to choose between one, they may go with the silver one. On Tuesday! But then on Friday, they might go with the black one. So, so, and that, that's just consumer behavior, which is why testing is so important as well. So the triangulation is that we're looking at asking the consumers the same, we're looking at achieving the objectives of our research from asking different angles of things. So we can ask them the questions, and we can ask, and we can understand what they are thinking or what they would like to be portrayed as. But then let's let's validate those answers. Let's put, let's put out two ads. If we, we want to know if we're selling, um, a nice example is I keep giving what we're thinking about clothes, right? I work with a lot of fashion designers. That's one of my favorite industries. We're trying to validate whether or not we want to buy a lot of this particular print of cloth to make several of this type of dress. And we want to put out this, should we buy the dress in the cloth in blue or should we buy it in red? Um, we can simply create a version. This is where content comes in and AB testing, create a version of the graphic for the dress, um, in red and one in blue post them both. And see which gets more clicks. That is an indication. Click is an indication of behavior. If it gets more clicks, it's more likely that it would get more conversion. Um, as opposed to if you ask them if they like red or blue. So you have the opportunity to ask in, in those interviews and questionnaires, but then A, B testing of content gives you the ability to test their behavior. So just as you said, um, what they say, what they think and what they do. are not always aligned, but we can test all of them. And then we have all of the data to help us make a decision about which material we want to invest in more, um, in in that space. So it's, it is, it is a science on its own and it is a, a lot of work on its own, I guess. Um, but that's how I would approach it. In the space that I work in right now, I'd like to say, we don't like to create to leave room for error. So we want to test everything. You want to have the interviews and the questionnaire and the focus group, and you want to run the A B testing of content so that you have all of the answers.

And then you, you sit back and you say, okay, so we know what they think. We know what they do. Let's make a decision from that point, from that standpoint of data, um, and, and, and knowledge. So that, that's how

I would triangulate. Do, do it all. If, of course, you have the resources to be able to do it all. If you don't, if your resources are super limited, of course, the behavioral testing is probably the most.

pointed. 

So that brings up another question of people with physical goods. Let's just suppose like, you know, you were talking about clothes. And close, you can see it, right? What about something that you taste or whatever, something that you smell? How, how would that apply to somebody who has a bakery and they want to know if the coffee cupcakes is going to sell better than the peanut butter cupcakes?

Uh, do, is it, is there a case where you AB test in person, you have people come in or what is the way that a physical business can approach that in order to get some type of data so that they could make more money? Better decisions in their marketing.

I mean, certainly what, what immediately came to mind is blind taste tests give you an opportunity for good content. Because if you, if you did it, if you did a nice, a taste test at your bakery, it doesn't have to be lots. You can taste us with 20 people. Um, but you can then turn that into something that you record and turn that into really great and fabulous content.

That, that's just a nice idea. Um, But then also, what also comes to mind is that people eat with their eyes first. So there is, there is the ability to, to put things out, um, on, on screen to, to be able to see if people like the, the, the coconut drop versus the, um, Um, the vanilla cupcake and see what people gravitate towards, see which piece of content gets more engagement. Um, and that would give you an indication of which one they would gravitate more towards. But I, I think you would have to do the in person taste tests. And again, these things don't have to be exhaustive, you know, a sample size of people, and that's such an important. terms, sample sizes should be able to give you some good insight, especially if you are able to put, pull your sample size well, not representatives of the entire, um, population, but representatives of people who are your target. So we know, we know the target because we've broken it down. We want people in ARIMA. We want people in this particular age group. We want people with these types of interests. And then remember the segmentation is followed closely by targeting and positioning. Um, so it's not just the segmentation, but what do these people need? What are these people trying to achieve? I worked with a fantastic ice cream brand in Trinidad, um, called bees ice cream. And I had the opportunity to, um, but bigger

I know you just saying,

Big up these and the better family. Um, I had, I had the opportunity to really think about what motivates people to buy ice cream. And, um, and, you know, one, one of the, the personas that I played with in my mind was the family ice cream hero. The person who brings ice cream home on a Sunday evening for, for his family or her family. What, what is the motivator for that person versus the, the child who wants to buy ice cream? What is motivating the child who's buying ice cream, who sees the pretty colors and who sees the sprinkles? And so you have to really think about not just the, the segment, but the needs and the motivators of those people.

And then, um, Pick some people from that. So you pick a couple ice cream heroes, you pick a couple, um, kids who want to have ice cream and then you test with them. Um, so it's, it's not random. It's something that, you know, we really have to sort of think through, but that STP framework really helps you to make great decisions in that, that research and that planning.

okay, great. That's very helpful. If we were to talk about positioning and targeting, that will probably take another two hours, but what I want us, what I want us to touch on a little bit before we, we kind of wrap up our conversation. As I know, we, we wanted to talk a little bit about brand building. So maybe you could give me the, the draft on that.

The quick kind of, uh, thing that a business owner should know if they want to start to build their brand or some critical points that they should start to think about. So we, we talk, we spoke about segmentation and, uh, yeah, just touching that a little bit for me. Cause I know he wanted to touch on that.

Yeah. Um, so I'll, I'll pull two models and I, a lot of what I am saying, as I said before, is Google able. So I'll plant some seeds and hopefully the listening audience would just decide to go Google it and get a little bit more information. Lots of this, you can just go on YouTube, but for brand building, I like to use, um, a model called CAP for us brand identity bit of a mouthful, but it's CAP for us with a K K A P F E R E R. And that brand identity prism, it sort of pushes you to ask yourself, if, uh, if my brand were a person, what would be its physical attributes? What would be its, um, cultural influences? What would be its personality? What sort of relationships with the brand have, what, how would the brand see itself? How would a consumer, how does a consumer see? Themselves in the context of the brand. So, and those are that the prison would set six facets. Um, if you, if you can dive, if you as an entrepreneur who is building your brand, can dive into those different facets of the brand and answer those questions, then it's a really great place for you to begin in creating content.

It's a great place for you to begin in choosing the platforms that you're on. In choosing the partnerships that you get into and choosing the types of customers and the way you relate to customers. Um, and so that cap for us, brand identity prism is something that I, I, I like to point to a lot. I would also point to something called the brand pyramid, which really, you know, um, when I learned marketing for the first time, there was something called fab features, attributes, and benefits. And, um, those. The brand pyramid is sort of a 3D model of features, attributes, and benefits. So you start at the bottom thinking about what are the features of my brand? What are the features of, of, of it? Um, but then we, we move up a little higher and think, um, what are the Not, not just the functional features, but the functional benefits, what are the function, what are the benefits that, that I can derive from this brand?

So yes, there are general features. The brand is your organization sells clothes and, and shoes or whatever, but then the functional benefits get into, um, well, it, it helps me to, you know, to present myself well at work. Um, then we go a little higher and think, what are the emotional benefits? Well, how does it make me feel?

How does, how does wearing your brand make me feel? Um, when I go to work, is it bringing, is it adding to my confidence? Is it, is it helping me to be more attractive to who I'm trying to be attracted to? Um, and then above that, Above emotional benefits is my favorite. It's the transformational benefits. And this, I like to push towards entrepreneurs a lot.

How does your brand have the power to change someone's life? How does your brand, you know, and I ask entrepreneurs that. Many, many, many. And they stop and they think you can see in their face that my, my brand isn't changing anyone's life. And then all of a sudden the light bulb goes on because they realize that you can, you do as a, as a brand have the power to change someone's life, to make someone's day, to Drastically better to make someone's month to make someone's relationship drastically better to make someone feel and carry themselves in an entirely different way in a life changing way. So I would encourage entrepreneurs. I would encourage people who are building brands to use those two models. Cap for us, brand identity, prism, and the brand pyramid to really think very deeply about the real impact that your brand could make and, you know, to sort of summarize. Everything that we've talked about, it's like, we understand our customer really well through segmentation. And then we understand the relationship that we're able to create. So it's like understanding ourselves and understanding the customer and then building a real and authentic relationship between you and the customer, because you understand yourself, you understand the value you bring to the customer and you understand how that fits into the customer's minds because you understand their needs.

Excellent. Excellent. Thank you so much, Kris, for sharing all of your insight and knowledge with us today. Some people may listen to this and they may want to get in contact with you. Where can the people find you online? I

Oh, I'm dancing on LinkedIn all day long. Um, so, so I mean, my name, my name is Kris Granger on LinkedIn. Feel free to add me. I add most

you might need to spell that. Well, it's just Kris KRS, 

RIS and Granger,

Oh,

GER, and my website is Kris Granger.com. Um, and my email address is Kris@KrisGranger.com. So I am easy, I'm easy to find. I'm, I'm quite easygoing under the LinkedIn timeline, I'm, I set myself a, a goal increase my community size. So I, I'm adding people so so feel free to, to add me on, on LinkedIn.

You don't just have to follow you. I'll add you back. I'll follow you back and we could, we could engage. Thanks a lot,

excellent. Excellent. This has been a good conversation. So thank you so much students for joining us here on our useful content podcast, useful content classroom. Dismissed.

Juma. Nice.

And we're clear.

That went by super, super fast. I hope, I hope

it does

super fast, super fast. That's how it usually is. It's like you look at any clock or one minute and then look back. It's 40 minutes.

That's true. It went from a nice, I saw when it was 440 and then all of a sudden it was 455. That

exactly. Exactly.

was good.

Exactly. That's how it usually goes. Let me stop.